Book Review: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney

Synopsis: Young Tom Ward takes up an apprenticeship to the county Spook, a kind of monster hunter.

This is the first of The Last Apprentice series. It's a middle-grade horror story. And it is good.

The world that Delaney creates has a ring of truth to it. It seems so vast and complicated without overdoing it. Delaney uses a fairly standard mythos, based largely on celtic lore, but he has his own take on it. There are some moments where Delaney's writing isn't as tight as it should be (nothing anyone but a jerk would notice), but otherwise it's nigh on perfect.

I particularly admire how Delaney structures his conflict. In almost any novel (especially those for a young audience or running the Hero's Journey), the hero has a mentor who is fully capable of solving the problem without the hero. The traditional (and annoying) way of handling this is to have the mentor say something enigmatic (such as, "This isn't my fight.") and then stand by doing nothing. The way Delaney keeps the Spook out of the fights is simple, but it works.

The interesting thing about this book is that it's obvious Delaney has studied the craft. Most of the time when I'm reading or watching TV or movies, as the plot develops I come up with a few predictions of what's coming. The first is always the Hollywood/hackneyed path, and it's right most of the time. The other predictions are based on the theory of plot, and they're "unexpected" results. Delaney actually used a few of my deeper predictions, and a few times even defied my "plot-dar."

I should say that although I predicted some of Delaney's twists, I don't consider the book predictable because I don't think most people would have seen them coming.